WINTER WEDDING ON A BUDGET 

Low Cost Winter Wedding Ideas

Weddings, as you know, are not cheap. The average wedding in the United States now costs about $30,000 for the wedding, the dress, the honeymoon and the rehearsal dinner. You may have been reading through this book thinking that some of the ideas are great but definitely not in your budget. Many brides wish that they could spend millions of dollars on their dream weddings like Hollywood stars or royalty do but the fact is that most brides are on a pretty tight budget and need to cut corners wherever they can so that they can afford to spend more money on the really important parts of the wedding. Well, the good news is that there are lots of ways that brides can trim down those wedding expenses so that they can afford to still have a lovely wedding even if they have to cut some corners. So here are some great ways that brides can save money on a winter wedding.

Save money on the dress

Can’t afford a couture wedding gown or don’t really want one? There are lots of ways you can get a great wedding dress on the cheap. If you’re willing to make some sacrifices and be flexible in terms of style you can get a great dress at sometimes half the cost.

Choose a vintage dress

Is the theme of your wedding vintage? Even if it isn’t, you can find gorgeous vintage gowns at resale shops or thrift stores for a bargain, sometimes under $50! Shopping for vintage gowns takes patience and time, because you have to try on every single gown to find the right fit. A lot of sizes have changed over the years so the size on the tag might not accurately reflect the size of the dress. You can also wear your mother’s or grandmother’s dress, if your mother or grandmother still has the dress. It’s much cheaper to have a dress altered than buy a new one.

Shop online

Shopping online can be a fabulous way to get a gorgeous dress, sometimes a designer dress, for up to half off. Look for closeout sales at online bridal boutiques and shop on auction sites like EBay or community sites like Craigslist to find new or gently used dresses. A word of caution though – make sure that you see pictures of the dress before you spend a lot of money for it and always pay with a credit card so that you can have some financial protection if the dress turns out to be stained or unusable.

Have a dress made

Is there a couture dress you love but you just can’t afford? Find a local seamstress who can knock off the design of the dress for you. Often a good seamstress can make a gown that looks exactly like the couture gown for a fraction of the price.

Save money on the location

 Do you really need to have your wedding in an expensive hotel or in a fancy cathedral? Consider holding the ceremony in your local church, or in a place that has special meaning for the two of you like the movie theater where you had your first date or the restaurant where you met. By thinking creatively you can find some very special and inexpensive locations to hold the wedding and the reception. A great place to hold a winter wedding that is often overlooked is your local botanical gardens. Many botanical gardens have lovely atriums indoors or greenhouses that make wonderful places to hold winter weddings and can be rented cheaply.

Save money on decorations

To cut the decoration and favor costs, make as many of the decorations as you can. Get your bridesmaids or other girlfriends who are crafty to help you. You can save a lot of money on decorations by being creative and making them yourself.

Save money on food

If money is really tight, then don’t have a dinner reception. Consider having your wedding ceremony in the morning and having a wedding brunch instead where you serve bagels, muffins, and pastries with orange juice, champagne, coffee, tea, and water. And wedding cake, of course. Another option to save money on food is to have a pot luck buffet at the reception. If you don’t want to ask all of your guests to bring food, ask your bridesmaids to help you prepare some traditional buffet foods like salads, pasta, and desserts before the wedding to save the expense of a caterer. Or have a cocktail only reception, where you only serve drinks and traditional cocktail fare for a few hours.

Save money on music

 You can save a lot of money by not hiring a band or a DJ to provide music for your reception. Instead, rent a 25, 50, or 100 CD changer and good speakers to set up in the hall. Make up a bunch of CDs with all your favorite songs and traditional wedding songs like the Hokey Pokey and the Chicken Dance on them and play those during the reception. Assign the Best Man or one of the groomsmen to make sure the CDs are changed and to act as the emcee.

Save money on photos

Do you really need to have a photographer attend the reception to snap photos? The more hours the photographer takes pictures the more expensive the wedding will be. If you want to save money, have a photographer come to the church or wedding hall and take a few stylized portraits of the bride and groom, and the wedding party, but then let family and friends be responsible for getting some candid photos of all the guests at the reception. Place baskets with small disposable cameras on every table so guests can capture those candid moments. There are disposable digital cameras so that you can put the pictures directly on your computer. Ask a friend or relative to record video on a digital camera if you want to have special moments like the bride and groom’s first dance on tape. Letting family and friends take the majority of your wedding photos can save a lot of money.

Save money on flowers

Check to see if there is another wedding going on at the church or wedding hall on the same day as yours; many times churches are booked for 2 or more weddings a day on popular days. Contact the other bride if there is another wedding scheduled at the church and see what her bridal colors are. If the two of you can coordinate colors then maybe you can share the expense of flowers by combining the flowers for the two weddings. Most churches require brides to leave the flowers at the church as part of the contract so it makes sense to share the cost of the flowers for the church or wedding hall if at all possible.

Save money by cutting down the guest list

While most brides want everyone they’ve ever known and loved to attend their wedding, cutting down the guest list to only immediate friends and family can result in huge savings on wedding costs. Do you really need to have your third grade teacher or your eighth cousin twice removed on your father’s side attend the wedding? Drastically cut your guest list if you need to cut your expenses.

There are lots of ways that brides can cut down on the expenses of a wedding in order to save money for the important things like the location of the wedding. Planning ahead and doing as much of the work as possible by yourself or with the help of your friends can be a huge money saver.